I've spent a month testing the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, and it's everything I've ever wanted in a Kindle, minus the affordable price

Date:
Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:14:07 +0000

Description:
The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is Amazons ultimate e-reading device, packing everything that makes the other Kindles so great into one device.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Kindle Scribe Colorsoft: Two-minute review The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft delivers everything you could want from an e-reader (mostly). Amazon packed this
device with all of the key features of its other Kindles, but unfortunately, it commands a much higher price as a result.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft nails all the e-reader basics, and that chunky upcharge brings some color into the mix so you can experience comics and the like. You also get a fancy pen to annotate and take notes. Those features function well overall, but they're not perfect. Despite combining the Scribe and Colorsoft portions in the Kindle, you actually can't use them in tandem. You can't annotate or take any notes when you're reading comics or manga, which is ironic considering this is meant to be an all-in-one solution.
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However, the 11-inch display is large enough to mimic the size of some
graphic novels. That means you have plenty of room to take notes, too. The screen also captures images in strong detail.

So, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is a great e-reader, but unless it's on sale, I'd only recommend it to folks in a higher tax bracket. Amazon Kindle Scribe Colorsoft (32GB) at Amazon for 569.99 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: price and availability (Image credit: Future/Rami Tabari) From $629 / 569 / AU$999 Launched in the US and UK on December 10, 2025 Launching in Australia on June 10, 2026 No. I simply cannot recommend the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft to the average Kindle user. Its just too damn expensive. Adding color and a pen to your Kindle is a luxury that I would only recommend to those invested in Amazons eBook ecosystem or someone with significant disposable income.

At its starting price with 32GB of storage, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft costs $629 / 569 / AU$999 (it will launch in Australia on June 10). For 64GB of storage, that price jumps up to $679 / 629 / AU$1,099. As someone who just wants to read a book, that makes my wallet cry. But keep in mind that this is the peak premium Kindle device. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You can break down the features of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft into three categories Kindle, Scribe, and Colorsoft and it's quite simple to pick
apart its value proposition as a result. The Kindle is just your traditional Paperwhite device for $159 / 159 / AU$199, and then the Colorsoft adds a splash of color to that for $249 / 269 / AU$399, and finally, youve got the Scribe for $399 / 379 / AU$649, which is like the Paperwhite, except you can write on it. Combine all that, and you get the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

If, for some reason, you need all three features packed into one device, then obviously, your only option in the Kindle ecosystem is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. But focusing on one key feature will save you some decent coin, so I recommend doing just that before committing such a princely sum to this all-in-one device. Not to mention, there are cheaper color e-readers out there, like the Kobo Libra Colour ($219 / 199 / AU$359). Value score: 3 / 5 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: Specs Swipe to scroll horizontally

Starting price:

$629 / 569 / AU$999

Display size:

11 inches

Storage:

32GB

Display sharpness:

300 ppi Black; 150 ppi Color

Weight:

400g

Dimensions:

189 x 245 x 5.4 mm

Screen lights:

36 white LEDs; 34 amber LEDs

Battery life:

8 weeks, reading 30 minutes/day, Brightness: 13

Document support:

Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion; Audible audio format (AAX) Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: design (Image credit: Future/Rami Tabari) Slightly less portable, but more reading room Pen placement is awkward The 11-inch Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is almost
as big as some of the taller graphic novels I have on my shelf, which seems appropriate considering its purpose. It does make it somewhat more difficult to carry around than the 7-inch Kindle Colorsoft , but it feels more authentic. And despite the larger 189 x 245mm body, it weighs only 400g and
is 5.4mm thick, so its still more portable than some hardcover books.

As far as the overall design goes, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft looks exactly how you imagine a Kindle would look, except without that chunky bottom bezel. The bezels are still large enough for your hands to grip the device without getting in the way of the screen.

I reviewed the Graphite model with the white pen, but you can get the Fig colorway, which also comes with a Fig-colored pen. I usually dont say this about tech, but I think I prefer the black model, only because the Fig colorway might be a little distracting while reading.

At the bottom, youll find the USB Type-C port for charging, and the power button is located on the top-right side. Just below that is the space where the pen attaches.

If youre thinking that the pen might get in the way while attached to the right side, youd be correct. Its a silly design choice, especially when the pen is small enough (155 x 8.8mm) to easily fit on top of the Kindle.

Overall, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is sleek and inoffensive. Its thin and light, albeit a bit harder to carry around than previous models, but who doesnt want a little more reading and writing space? However, I am frustrated by the pen placement. Design score: 4 / 5 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: display (Image credit: Future/Rami Tabari) Theres color, but its not colorful Text and images are sharp The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft covers the black-and-white spectrum at 300 ppi and adds a splash of color at 150 ppi. There isnt much the 11-inch display could do to elevate the average book reading experience, but it didnt have to. Text looked clear and crisp, and
the 36 white LEDs and 34 amber LEDs made it so I had a more comfortable reading experience depending on the setting I was in.

Like with other e-ink displays, the LEDs do create a layer of color (white or amber) that warps the image on the screen a little bit. With black text, its perfectly fine, as the difference is negligible. However, when introducing color, its more noticeable.

The problem is that, while its nice to have color, the Kindle Scribe
Colorsoft is just not as colorful as Id like it to be. I read Hellblazer Vol. 1, and when John Constantine heads to Africa, there are supposed to be these bright and bold pink and yellow hues, but they are muted on the Scribe Colorsofts screen. Even when set to Vivid mode, the color doesnt pop. Honestly, this is to be expected from an e-ink display. But it doesnt change the fact that you wont get the same experience as looking at a real graphic novel. Dont get me wrong, its great that we can experience color at all, but at this wild asking price, its definitely not worth it for the color alone. Display score: 4 / 5 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: performance (Image credit: Future/Rami Tabari) Relatively smooth The response times you expect Youre not looking at a racehorse here; this is a little pony, and that's OK. You dont need all the performance in the world to run an e-reader.

The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is relatively smooth across the board but still suffers from slightly slow response times during navigation. This isnt a huge turn-off, since most of the experience comes down to turning a page. I did have to restart my Kindle once because it simply refused to connect to Wi-Fi no matter how many times I tried, but it resolved itself afterwards.

When doing more involved things like annotating or taking notes, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft kept up with all of my movements and demands with little issue. Zooming in around the pages also looked and felt smooth, although theres still a slight awkward delay for the image to refresh, as I could clearly see the ghost of an image from the previous screen. User experience score: 4 / 5 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: software (Image credit: Future/Rami Tabari) Surprisingly fast performance on E Ink Smooth zooming, whether color or black and white All of the important bits of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, or any e-reader, come down to the software experience. I am generally happy with what this Kindle provides, and its not that much different from other e-readers.

Youve got the essentials that allow you to adjust the layout, font, spacing, etc. There are little things like the Popular highlights and About this book info, which are neat. Then theres Word Wise, which defines unfamiliar words but also still needs a lot of work it identifies overly simple words even at its lowest setting instead of exclusively honing in on the university-level vocabulary that most people would struggle with.

One of my personal favorite software features is being able to isolate comic panels. Double-tapping on a comic panel will make it full screen, and then
you can flip through the following panels with ease. When it gets to a new page, itll show you the full page and then break down each panel at full screen. This is super cool because you dont have to zoom in to get a closer look at whats happening. However, its not perfect. I noticed an issue when reading Attack on Titan where, when there are two panels and text sprawled across them, sometimes the Kindle wont combine the panels, and it cuts off
the text.

Another cool feature is being able to simulate page turns, which I love in theory, but it doesnt look the best in practice. The problem is that its a fade-in and -out effect instead of an actual flipping animation. It looks a bit more natural when reading a book because its a quick fade between texts, but its a much uglier transition with comics because theres a lot of ghosting happening. It looks like it fades in chunks, and it was visually unsatisfying to the point where I turned it off. (Image credit: Future/Rami Tabari) To highlight the Scribe portion of this Kindle, the notetaking and markup
process is rather smooth. The pen is equipped with an eraser on the back and
a shortcut button on its side (defaulted to highlight). When reading a standard book, there are two important icons, one on the left and right. The leftmost icon is for all of your pen settings to customize the look, change between highlighters and erasers, and even insert notes and canvases between the text.

The right side of the screen is where you take your notes; it can expand and either split the screen with the text or hover over it, and wherever you
write notes, itll attach a note symbol next to the closest text. Thats pretty intuitive, since you can change the layout of the book, so naturally it would move the space of your notes. You can even expand the size of notes to take
up the full page if you want, so theres plenty of room to write.

There are a lot of features for folks interested in the Scribe portion of things, and they operate pretty seamlessly overall. Theres even a workspace section where you can take full notes unrelated to what youre reading. In
that workspace, there are two AI features, one of which can summarize your notes, and the other can Refine writing, which basically transforms your
notes into a text font that you can customize.

The only absent feature I noticed is that you cant take any notes in comics. That means no drawings, notetaking, or even highlighting. Performance score:
4 / 5 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review: battery USB-C charging or go wireless with the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition (Image credit: Future/Rami
Tabari) Light readers can go for weeks Heavy readers can go for days
According to Amazon, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft can survive for eight weeks if you're reading for 30 minutes at just under half brightness. I'll save you the math: that's 28 hours of reading time. For light readers, you could probably stretch that for a few weeks. Heavier readers will likely kill that battery in a few days.

I spent several weeks with the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, reading roughly an hour every day, and I didn't need to reach for a charger until toward the end of the month. That gives credit to Amazons battery life claim.

The reading time you experience will vary heavily based on the brightness of your screen. If you're someone who reads at close to zero brightness, you're going to get a lot more longevity out of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft.

Unfortunately, the battery does not charge fast. When I first got it, the battery was completely drained, and I had to wait quite a while before the Kindle showed any signs of life. It'll make you think it's broken, so I do
not recommend letting it die. Battery score: 5 / 5 Should I buy the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft? Swipe to scroll horizontally

Attribute

Notes

Score

Value

What is there to say other than, ouch. The price of the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is not for the faint of heart.

3/5

Design

This is a pretty sleek and light Kindle all-round, with my only complaint being that the pen placement shouldve been on top and not on the side.

4/5

Display

The screen is crisp and sharp, capturing text easily and, even more impressively, images in comics with great detail. Unfortunately, while there is color, its not quite colorful.

4/5

Performance

It does what it needs to do. There are still some slower response times here and there, but otherwise it functions perfectly fine.

4/5

Software

The software experience is great overall; notetakers will be especially pleased. However, there are some misses here and there.

4/5

Battery

The battery life is great. Itll last for weeks if youre a light reader, or a few days as a heavy reader.

5/5 Buy it if... Youre big on comics and notetaking If you want to add a splash of color to your reading, especially if youre looking for comics, then the Color portion of this device is just for you. And if youre a serious notetaker, the Scribe portion is also just for you. A perfect combo (even though you technically cant combine the two sorry). You want a large e-reading display Outside of the unique features, youre also just getting a large e-reading display. The Scribe Colorsoft's 11-inch screen is large
enough to mimic the size of some graphic novels. Its also quite sharp. You want a feature-filled e-reader Outside of the Kindle Scribe Colorsofts core functions, there are plenty of features onboard to make your reading and writing experience tailored specifically to you. Don't buy it if... Youre looking for a budget e-reader This may be obvious, but dont dig yourself into a rabbit hole trying to get the best e-reader out there. If youre on a
budget, look elsewhere. You want Color or Scribe, not both Care for one more than the other? Perfect, I have great news for you. You can get either a Kindle Scribe or a Kindle Colorsoft for much cheaper than you can get their combined variation here. Also consider Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Weve seen
color e-readers, but the Kindle Colorsoft offers amazing performance on E
Ink, with Amazons robust Kindle library and e-book simplicity. Its a pricey upgrade, but its going to change the way we see Kindle forever.

Read our full Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review Amazon Kindle Scribe The Amazon Kindle Scribe (2024) could have been a simple (read: boring) update, but Amazon added AI features and theyre actually good?! Kindle AI brings better handwriting recognition and note summaries nothing untoward, and it makes
the Kindle Scribe an even more competitive writing tablet, on top of being
the best big e-reader you can buy.

Read our full Amazon Kindle Scribe review Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Amazon made the right decision in adopting the E Ink Carta 1300 display for its 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite, which adds more contrast to text and makes it just that much nicer to read on. However, the extra millimeters of screen real estate are neither here nor there, and even though overall performance
is slightly better than the previous generation, it's not a huge difference
in real-world use. The design looks cheap for its bumped-up price tag,
meaning the Paperwhite no longer represents good value, especially when a large 4.5GB of its 16GB storage is taken up by the operating system.

Read our full Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review How I tested the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft Review test period = four weeks Testing included = books, comics, manga I spent a month bouncing around between books, comics, and manga. I
read The House Witch, The Time of Contempt, Hellblazer Vol. 1, and Attack on Titan, most of which were available on Prime Reading. I spent roughly an hour a day reading. Logging into my Amazon account and getting them on the device was easy. Downloading comics and manga takes a little longer than books, but not significantly so.

For the Scribe portion of the review, I highlighted portions of dialogue and wrote little notes to myself to come back to later because the text was
either written impeccably well or it was just a funny line. I also drew canvases between the text just silly doodles right in the middle of the
book.

First reviewed: May 2026 Amazon Kindle Scribe Colorsoft: Price Comparison 569.99 View 569.99 View 569.99 View 629.99 View 629.99 View Show more We
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/tablets/ereaders/amazon-kindle-scribe-colorsoft-revi ew


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